90 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



green, glabrous, or Avith the branches of the year, petioles, leaves, 

 and peduncles more or less shortly pubescent. 



Var. /3 differs much in habit, having the stems short, much 

 branched, prostrate, with the branches of the year fleshy; the 

 leaves have shorter stalks, and are generally without the segments 

 at the base, though these are occasionally present ; the calyx-seg- 

 ments are rather more acute, but both forms vary in this respect ; 

 the young leaves and stems vary from glabrous to pubescent, as in 

 var. a. 



Woody Nightshade. 



French, Morelle Douce-amere. German, Biltersuss. 



The family of plants to which this species belongs has been long considered to be 

 poisonous in its qualities, and until lately but little distinction has been made between 

 tlie effects of different species. Dr. Garrod, the Professor of Materia Medica at King's 

 College, London, considers all the Solanums as perfectly innocuous, and has performed 

 a number of experiments to prove his theory. It is, however, veiy unsafe to allow the 

 berries of any of these plants to be eaten, and we think — although it is well not to 

 allow false notions to continue with regard to the active properties of plants — it is also 

 wise to forbid children and young people from eating any wild fruits about which there 

 may be doubts. The older physicians valued the Bitter-sweet, as this plant is called, 

 and applied it to many purposes in medicine and surgery. Gerarde says, " The juice 

 is good for those that have fallen from high places, and have been thereby bruised or 

 dry beaten, for it is thought to dissolve bloud congealed or cluttered anywhere in the 

 intrals, and to heale the hurt places." Boerhaave considered the young shoots superior 

 to sarsaparilla as a restorative ; and Linnaeus speaks of it in the highest terms as a 

 remedy for rheumatism, fever, and inflammatory diseases. It is a curious fact that our 

 uuiversally-eaten potato should belong to a family of plants about which there is so 

 much suspicion. For some time Linnaeus objected to its use on account of its connec- 

 tions ; but, although we believe illness has resulted from taking the water in which 

 the roots have been boiled, the potato itself is one of our most valuable articles of diet, 

 and we can but recall with gratitude the transplantation of this useful root from 

 Virginia in 1584, by Sir Walter Raleigh, on to his estate near Youghall, in Ireland, 

 little thinking though he did, that it would one day become the chief subsistence of a 

 large portion of his countrymen. In some counties this plant is called the Deadly 

 Nightshade, and Mr. Bentham has thus named it in his " Handbook of the British 

 Flora." This term, however, ought to be applied only to the Atropa Belladonna. 



SPECIES II.— SOL AN UM NIGRUM. Linn. 



Plates DCCCCXXXL DCCCCXXXIL 



E/Ootstock none. Stem herbaceous. Leaves rhomboid-ovate, 

 repand-dentate or sinuate- dentate, acute. Cymes umbellate- 

 corymbose, produced from the upper part of the internodes. 

 Plowers 3 to 7, slightly drooping. Corolla deeply 5-cleft ; seg- 

 ments triangular, very slightly reflexed at the apex. Berries 

 drooping, globular, obtuse. 



